How rainbow writing works
Rainbow writing is a simple routine teachers use for sight words, spelling words and names: the child writes over the same word several times, with a different color each time. Each round is another careful pass over the letter shapes, and the colors make the repetition feel like making something rather than doing the same thing again.
On these sheets the first line shows the word in solid letters, with green starting dots and stroke order numbers and arrows. Every line below draws the word as hollow letters: a thin colored outline with room inside for a crayon. A key at the top of the page lists six colors, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, so the child knows which crayon comes next. Trace inside the outline once with red, then again with orange, and so on.
How to make a rainbow writing worksheet
- Pick a set or type your words. The buttons fill the box with the first 20 Dolch pre-primer sight words, color words, short CVC words, Aa to Zz, numbers 1 to 10 or the days of the week. Or type a child's name, a spelling list or any words, one per line. Each line becomes its own page.
- Keep Rainbow as the tracing style. The page opens with it. You can switch the same words to dotted or light gray letters at any time, and back.
- Pick the size. Extra large (the default) leaves the most room inside the letters for crayons. Large suits kindergarten, medium suits first grade and fits longer words.
- Print or save as PDF. The whole set prints in one go, one page per word. Download PNG saves one image per page.
Color or black and white printing
The outlines are printed in color, one color per letter, and the color key shows six colored dots. On a black and white printer the outlines come out as dark and medium grays, which are still easy to see, and each dot in the key keeps its color name printed next to it, so the child can still follow the order. The inside of every letter is white, so crayon shows up well on either kind of print.
For cursive, choose Cursive under Letters: the words are drawn as gray hollow letters in traditional US cursive. Rainbow works with print and D'Nealian letters too, which are drawn with the same hollow outline.
Ideas for rainbow writing
- Sight words. One word per day: read it, rainbow write it, then write it alone on the line underneath. The full Dolch and Fry lists are on the sight word tracing worksheets page; copy any list into the box here.
- Spelling words. Paste this week's list. Rainbow writing makes a good Monday task before the child writes the words without help on the spelling practice worksheets.
- Names. Type a child's name for rainbow name tracing. A whole class list makes one page per child. For dotted name pages, use the name tracing worksheet generator.
- Letters. Aa to Zz makes 26 pages, one letter pair each, good for a letter of the week.
- Color words. Trace red in red, blue in blue: a quick way to read and spell the color words.